Subject: THE ASCENT OF WONDER edited by Hartwell and Cramer

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper)
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 23:31:57 GMT

THE ASCENT OF WONDER: THE EVOLUTION OF HARD SF
             edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
         Tor, ISBN 0-312-85062-X, June 29, 1994, 992pp, US$35.
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper

     I will confess up front that I have not read this book cover to
cover.  In the interests of getting this review out in a timely manner,
I compromised by reading the introductions and a sampling of the stories
that I had not previously read.  (I "fell off the book wagon" a couple
of weekends ago and bought thirty books, so my reading schedule is in
some disarray.)

     In any case, I think that I can shed some light on two of the three
questions people may be asking about this hefty (3-1/2-pound) tome:
          What is it attempting to do?
          Does it succeed?
          Is it any good?

     The first question--what is the purpose of this book?--is one I
can't answer.  The book is subtitled "The Evolution of Hard SF," but
evolution implies a flow of time, a continuity (of cause and effect,
perhaps), and the stories here are in what appears to be random order.
They are not arranged chronologically or thematically, but are divided
into "Part I," "Part II," and "Part III," with no clue as to what the
parts represent.  (The alternate ordering given in the back has at least
some logic to it.)  In keeping with this random order, Benford's
introduction appears to be a series of one-liners about various hard
science fiction stories, also in random order.

     Hartwell claims on page 30 in his introduction that this is the
first anthology to focus on all of hard science fiction.  I would debate
that: Healy & McComas's FAMOUS SCIENCE FICTION STORIES: ADVENTURES IN
TIME AND SPACE did it in 1947.  The blurb for the latter was "35 great
stories of the world of atomic power, rockets, robots, time and space
machines, etc."  These are definitely "hard SF," but Hartwell and
Cramer, with an additional four and a half decades to choose from, have
not even stayed within the incredibly broad range of "hard SF" stories,
but include stories based on anthropology, psychology, and other "soft"
sciences.  The result is that many well-known hard science fiction
authors are missing, while there are TWO stories by each of
J. G. Ballard, Ursula K. LeGuin, John M. Ford, and Hilbert Schenck.  And
why include Rudyard Kipling's "With the Night Mail"?  In terms of the
evolution of hard science fiction, it was a virtual dead end, inspiring
little or none of what came after it.  Nathaniel Hawthorne's
"Rappaccini's Daughter" isn't hard science fiction.  Jules Verne's "In
the Year 2889" is minor, even according to Hartwell and Cramer, and
seems to be here only because Verne was a major influence (through his
novels).  Poe is known as a major influence in the fields of horror and
mystery; his inclusion here seems strained.  I suppose part of the issue
was what Hartwell and Cramer could get the rights to, but many of the
classic hard science fiction stories that Healy and McComas collected
are missing from this anthology.  Of course, trying to include
"everyone's who's anyone" appears to have been the downfall of LAST
DANGEROUS VISIONS, so one shouldn't be too hard on Hartwell and Cramer.
At least this book has been published.

     In the introductions as well, there is much room for debate.
Hartwell, for example, says on page 39 that 1965 was the last year
"Campbell's magazine" (ASTOUNDING/ANALOG) won the Hugo as Best
Professional Magazine, and attributes this to the rise of the New Wave.
The fact is that the award was replaced in 1973 by Best Professional
Editor and Ben Bova won it from 1973 to 1977--for editing ANALOG.
Gregory Benford on page 21 says LAST AND FIRST MEN was Olaf Stapledon's
first work; it was his first *fiction* work, but his *third* published
work.) And on page 43 it is claimed that "Nine Lives" is "perhaps [Le
Guin's] most famous" story.  Really?  More than "The Word for World is
Forest" or "Vaster than Empires and More Slow" or "Buffalo Gals Won't
You Come Out Tonight" (all but the first of which were nominated for
Hugos, which "Nine Lives" was not, though it was nominated for a
Nebula).  And drawing a parallel between Marcel Proust and Bob Shaw's
"slow glass" seems like a real reach.  (Whether from an attempt to
elevate science fiction or not, Cramer also quotes M. C. Escher,
Poincare, and Leonardo da Vinci in her introduction.)

     There were also a few minor annoyances.  The editors seem to have
decided that the correct abbreviation for science fiction is "sf"--and
at the beginning of a sentence, "Sf."  They repeatedly talk about the
"affect" of a story (and, no, they don't mean "effect").  This may be
correct English, but it is an uncommon usage that will cause many
readers to think the editors don't know the difference between "affect"
and "effect."  And they use a sans serif font for the introductions that
I find very hard to read.

     Having said all that, I *still* recommend this book.  Why?  Well,
you get sixty-seven stories which, while not all classics, or even all
hard science fiction, certainly all have something to recommend them.
Some are indeed classics (Arthur C. Clarke's "Star," James Blish's
"Surface Tension," and Tom Godwin's "Cold Equations," for example).
It's a sign of how far ANALOG has fallen that it recently published a
pastiche of "The Cold Equations" in which was changed the one thing that
made the Godwin story a classic.)  Some are famous even if they aren't
classics (in which category I would put the Kipling and Poe stories).
Some are "merely" good stories by the important writers in the field of
science fiction (hard, soft, gooey, or otherwise).  With the three
introductions, this works out to fifty cents a story.  If you're a
longtime science fiction fan, you may already have many of these
stories, but if you're relatively new, this is a great book for
discovering authors and stories and ideas that can lead to further
exploration.

%E      Hartwell, David G. 
%E      Cramer, Kathryn 
%B      The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF
%I      Tor
%C      New York
%D      June 29, 1994
%G      ISBN 0-312-85062-X
%P      992pp
%O      hardcover, US$35.00

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"Am I politically correct today?  Do I do crystals and New Age?
Obviously, women's music's for me--Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith, and Patti Page."
				--Lynn Lavner